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Friday, March 18, 2011

Is Mats Zuccarello Getting A Free Pass From Rangers Fans?

Al Bello/Getty Images

One of the best parts of being a
fan of sports is having players you love to follow and for each fan there are
different reasons that certain types of players or individual guys strike a chord
with them.New York Rangers fans are
certainly no different and there favorites are totally up to them.It is also a part of reality that fans judge their
favorites on a different scale than other players.That statement should not shock nor surprise
you and it is true of every team in the league and their fans.There is nothing wrong with it and it is a
very natural thing because there is more of an investment in those players.The place where I take issue with it is when
certain players are getting called out for poor play while favorites are
getting a pass while producing even less.One of those players, at least it appears to me, who is getting a pass
from Rangers fans is Mats Zuccarello.

Let me try a blind test to see
how well this works.

Since January 11

GP

Goals

Assists

Plus/Minus

PP Points

Player A

28

5

11

5

7

Player B

27

5

11

12

3

Those numbers look nearly
identical and yet from listening to fans discuss these two players you would
think one is enigmatic and only shows up sometimes while the other is there
every night and playing great.Player A
is Mats Zuccarello.Player B is Wojtek
Wolski.

I believe Mats Zuccarello will
become a very good player at this level and he has already shown flashes of his
tremendous future, but the fact that you believe in his future does not make
him immune to criticism now. Overall Zuccarello has 20 points (6-14) in 36 games as a New York Ranger. If you take out his four multi-point games however his numbers are a mere 11 points in 32 games, which clearly is not good enough. On the goal scoring front, before
scoring those three goals in the two games against Ottawa and Philadelphia he
had gone 18 games without a goal.Name
me a forward on this team who could have a drought of
18 games without a goal and have so little said about it. I give massive credit to Eddie Geick of Blueshirt Banter Radio for bringing this up a few weeks ago as the general discussion of struggling Rangers never included Zuccarello.

There is no denying that
Zuccarello gives an honest effort every night and that cannot be said of all
the Rangers players, but results are results and at some point we have to stop
patting some guys on the head because we like that they try and bashing others
because we don’t think they try hard enough.Either we judge guys on results or we don’t and we cannot change the
scales to fit the guys we like and ding the guys we might not.

I believe part of the free pass
that Zuke was getting beyond the effort side of it was about his prowess in the
shootouts, but the opposing goalies are starting to figure that out as well as
after going 4 of 4 to start his NHL career he is now 1 of 4.Fans also naturally love smaller players,
especially those who like Zuke show no fear in taking on the bigger guys
because toughness is always rewarded with fan appreciation.All of those things are great and natural
reactions, but at the end of the day hockey is a game that is dictated on the
scoreboard and Zuccarello is not producing consistently enough to warrant his
free pass. With Sean Avery struggling to find a place in the lineup at the moment these 12 forwards might be safe for the rest of the year, but if Avery was to earn his way back in then Zuccarello should be a potential candidate to sit as well if things dont change.

I hope that Zuccarello goes out and hits the Habs up for a hat-trick just to make me talk about the other side of this tomorrow because I love to praise his game as much as any Ranger. If we are going to praise and criticize guys, favorites or not, there has to be some semblance of consistency in what we are basing it on.